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Category Archives: Family & Friends

I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss him anymore. The truth is that I will always miss him, what we had, what we were…but it doesn’t necessarily mean I want any of it back. Learning to distinguish between the two has been the most difficult part of the process for me. For the longest time, I didn’t know if it was him I wanted or the memories.

There’s still not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him and wonder how he’s doing. There’s a part of me that wonders if he feels the same. We haven’t talked or interacted at all since we met up a couple of months ago. Like I’ve said in previous posts, I don’t know why he wanted to reconnect and maybe that’s not for me to know or understand.

For the last four and a half years that I’ve know him, he is the one person who’s always found his way back into my life. It didn’t matter how many times I cut him out or said I needed space. I thought 2015 was it…everything was done and we were never going to speak to each other again. And just when I think I’ll never hear from him again, he pops back into my life. I guess life will always work in mysterious ways, and the people who are meant to be in your life will always be there.

I don’t know what the future holds for us. I don’t ever expect us to get back together again. I don’t even expect us to be close friends again. With everything that’s happened, there’s just no way. But I still find it funny that out of everyone I became friends with in college, the one person I had the most dysfunctional friendship/relationship with was the one who ended up moving near me. Weird how life works, right?

I firmly believe that whatever’s meant to happen will happen. Who knows? Maybe next year, we’ll rekindle our friendship again and actually be okay and be able to tolerate being around each other without feelings getting in the way or ruining things. That’s the thing about the future…you just never know. Just like I was 99% sure I would never see or speak to him ever again, there’s always that 1%.

I feel like I’m finally at that place where we can be friends again if time and life allow it. I will never close the door to our friendship, but I will always proceed with caution. There’s a saying, “Don’t run back to what broke you.” I know I need to be careful. There’s no way I’ll allow myself to retreat back to that dark place after we broke up. The most beautiful thing that can ever come from a break up is that you learn more about yourself. What you did right, what you did wrong, what you want in a relationship and what you don’t want, what you’ll compromise and where you’ll draw the line.

We may have only dated for two months, but it was two and a half years in the making. The feelings were there and we both knew it. But it doesn’t matter how long it lasted. I would have much rather gotten out sooner rather than later if I strongly felt like we weren’t going to make it. Does it suck that I didn’t have much trust and faith in the relationship from the beginning? Of course it does. But I would have rather known than to continue living life always wondering what could have been, especially since this relationship was the one thing I wanted most at the time.

I’m glad I can look back on how far I’ve come and know that I am okay. There are no more feelings of anger or resentment…..regret, especially. Everything happens for a reason. It’ll be interesting to see what the future has in store for us. Whether we ever rekindle our friendship or continue living life as nothing more than acquaintances. One of the weirdest parts about this journey has been that transition to being “strangers” again. When we hung out last month, I literally felt like I was sitting across from someone I didn’t know. It was awkward like the first-time-meeting kind of awkward. Yet, we share this past that cannot be erased, no matter how hard he or I try to block those memories out of our minds. Simply put, we’re strangers with history. And I’m okay with that.

If there’s anything I would want him to know, it’s that no matter what’s happened between us in the past and no matter where we stand today, if he ever truly needed a friend, I will always be there for him. I know I’m probably not the first person he would run to, but I will always be a friend. Last August we had a brief conversation through text and he said there were moments he was struggling and having a difficult time and wanted to reach out to me. I never said this to him, but it was nice to hear. To know that he still needed me and wanted that friendship meant something to me.

But anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. I’ll end with this. I firmly believe that you meet people for a reason, and the ones who are meant to be in your life will always find their way back, no matter how far they wander. It’ll be interesting to see where life takes us a year from now, five years from now…but you can guarantee I’ll have something to say about it when the time comes.

I had a conversation about this with a good friend not too long ago and he told me how he sometimes gets paranoid over how he thinks certain friends value him. For example, with some people, he feels like he’s the one who puts more effort into the friendships, or he’s the one always reaching out. It makes him question whether some people really want to be friends or not. I can totally relate to him because I’ve found myself in that situation many times.

I’ll be honest, from the time I was a kid and all throughout high school, I believed in having one best friend. And when it wasn’t reciprocated, I would always get jealous. As I got older, however, I began to realize that just because someone may not like me as much as I like them, it doesn’t mean they value me any less. Some people are very vocal about the “best friend” label, while with some, it’s more like an unspoken understanding.

There’s no harm in evaluating your friendships every once in a while, especially if you’re beginning to notice drastic changes in the dynamic. If you feel like you’re beginning to question your friendships, consider this:

Pull back. If you feel like you’re the one one initiating contact, pull back and see if the other person initiates contact first. If they don’t, then you’ll kind of know where you stand. As life goes on, we all become busier and priorities will change, but if you’re important to someone, they’ll always find a way. This leads me to my second tip.

last resort. I had a friend from home who moved closer to me for work. He was one of my good friends in college, but as soon as he moved, he made little to no effort to see me. It suddenly became all about his new friends and he only contacted me as a last resort. Don’t get me wrong though. I was happy he was meeting new people and making new friends, but he would start contacting me at the very last minute, which I didn’t like. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spontaneity. I realize that sometimes it’s easier to just do things on the fly. But for me personally, I like finding a time that’s convenient for both of us, even if it means having to wait a couple of weeks.

finding a way or making an excuse. Do they find a way to hang out with you and see you, or are they constantly making excuses as to why they can’t get together with you? If you find yourself in the latter category, you might want to re-evaluate the friendship. That’s not to say you have to stop being friends with the person all together, but don’t put them so high on your priority list if they’re not going to treat you the same way. I’ll be honest and say I’ve been on both ends of this. I’ve been the one who’s reached out to people with no luck, but I’ve also been the person making the excuses because I don’t want to hang out. It’s a part of life. At one point or another, we’ve ALL been on the giving/receiving end of this circumstance. If you feel like someone’s always making some sort of excuse not to hang out, maybe it’s time to stop making attempts.

Friends will come and go. Always trust your gut, but also pay attention to their behavior. It’s not something you have to do every single day, but definitely pay attention to how they treat you. You may need to cut some strings, and that’s perfectly fine! It’s important to surround yourself with people that lift you up and get just as excited to see you as you are to see them!

I’ve been thinking about my friendships recently, and I’ve realized that I haven’t been able to keep a friend for more than 5 years…not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because I’ve heard the saying that if you’re not losing friends, you’re not growing.

I do realize that as I grow older, I’m forging my own path, just as everyone else is doing. Life pulls people in different directions, and sometimes I just naturally drift apart from people. But then I ask myself if that’s the real reason why I’m losing these people, or if it’s just because I suck at keeping in touch with them.

Regardless, I do realize I need to make more of an effort in reaching out to those who really matter to me…friends who have been there for me through thick and thin. From there, I can easily weed out the rest. Adolescence has not been an easy journey, as it should be. I can’t believe that at one point, I thought my high school drama with friends was the end of me.

I know that not everyone is meant to stay in our lives forever. Some chapters are shorter than others and that’s something I’m beginning to understand and accept. I hope that when I’m old and have a family of my own, that I still have some of my best friends from college. Sure, distance makes it easy to fall out of touch, but the friendships that can stand the test of time are the ones I need to start paying more attention to. I’m so blessed to have met some pretty incredible and amazing people in my life. And as I continue on my journey, people will come and go, but if a little effort comes from both ends, there’s nothing to worry about.

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.

At this point, I’m ready to accept the fact that it is what it is. It took me long enough to realize that this will never work. I don’t know what I was thinking, but hey, life’s about making mistakes and learning from them, right? I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, but not in the way I’m used to thinking about him. I’ve been thinking about him from an outside perspective…I mean really taking a step back and analyzing our relationship.

I don’t know if I talked about this already or not, but I’ll briefly describe what’s been going on. So I hung out with him about a week ago and it was as if I saw a different side to him. He’s never been the one to be expressive with his feelings, let alone to me. Basically our friendship has been on the rocks for the last two years, ever since we confessed our feelings for each other. But this semester especially, I’ve been trying to distance myself from him because A) I felt like it’s what was best for me in order to move on, and B) he wasn’t exactly treating me the way I wanted to be treated.

I don’t know why he became mean to me all of a sudden. It was as if I wasn’t even a human being to him. I’ll admit, I can be a tad over sensitive at times, but in comparison to how the rest of our friendship has gone, this was like on a different level. Anyway, it’s sad because he spent this whole semester treating me like that, which resulted in me pushing myself away from him even more. And now that I’ve graduated college and about to move out of town, that’s when he decides to be nice to me. So essentially, while he could have spent what time he had left with me being nice and growing closer as friends, we were distanced…and now it’s “too late.” But I’ve learned to expect this type of behavior from him because that’s who he is. I don’t know if this is how all guys act and I’m not trying to generalize, but with the ones I’ve gotten super close to, this seems to always happen.

Yes, now, more than ever, will be a testament of our friendship. At this point, I’m having very mixed feelings about him. I know he wants to stay friends and he sees us living together in the future and working together, but I’m not entirely sure that that’s what I want. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation like this before. I mean it’s pretty trivial from an outsider’s pov, but I don’t know. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

But it’s like I said in my last post, he has a piece of my heart that I’ll never get back. How can I live with someone I still have feelings for? It’s not fair to either of us. For the most part, yes, I have moved on, but as long as he’s still a presence in my life, I can’t move forward. I don’t know what his intentions are…all I know is that actions speak louder than words…and his actions have said enough.

My room is packed. It’s finally beginning to sink in. Although my move won’t be very far, it’s still a drastic change for me. At first, I didn’t really know how to feel about all of this…I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay where my friends are and where my network is. I wanted this summer to enjoy the fact I graduated college and be with the people who made it an unforgettable experience. However, now that I look at it, I NEED this. Whether I want to move or not, it’s time to spread my wings, make mistakes, and learn. I have to trust that my true friends will stay in touch with me and not completely forget about me once I leave. It’s just hard when I’ve said the same thing with my high school friends and I barely talk to them anymore. I want to believe that it’ll be different this time…that these people I’ve worked with and become friends with, I’ll be working with them after college. High school was tough because we were all going our separate ways. I want to believe it’ll be different this time. But I know that if I expect them to make the effort, I have to make the effort as well.

I hung out with my friend the other day…yes, the one I’ve had deep feelings for over these last three years. It’s been a difficult relationship for the both of us, but at the end of the day, we have become a part of each other…forever.

This started when he asked me to hang out. He got very sad about me graduating from college. Basically our whole group graduated this year and he sort of feels left behind. I wasn’t sure how this was going to be. We hadn’t hung out one-on-one since last semester. I didn’t know if it was going to be weird or awkward because I’ve been keeping my distance on purpose. I stopped trying because I didn’t want to get hurt a third time by the same person. Those deeply rooted feelings…those don’t just go away over night.

We ended up going to lunch and he picked up the tab. We walked around for a little bit and headed back to school where we sat and talked for a couple of hours. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him express his feelings the way he did that day. For the first time, I really heard him say how much he’s going to miss me, how different things are going to be for him this fall semester without me there. He couldn’t believe how quickly I was leaving.

The thing was…it wasn’t as weird as I had hoped. I think for the most part, my feelings for him have gone away in that respect. However, there will ALWAYS be a part of me that has feelings for him. A piece of my heart I will never get back. He told me that I have become a part of him…and that when I leave, it’s like a part of him is leaving. That was one of the sweetest things he could have said to me…to know I’ve made such an impact on his life means I’ve done my part as a friend. No, our friendship hasn’t been easy by any means, but I will always love him. It may not be in a romantic way like I had hoped, but I love him and I know he loves me. Beneath all the chaos and pain we both experienced is a bond that will never go away. I don’t really know how to describe it. Never did I ever think that when I started college I’d meet someone I’d grow so close to, someone I’d become attached to. It only makes it that much harder to be apart.

I told him if he ever feels sad, I’m always a phone call away. I said sometimes hearing the person’s voice makes it a little better. But honestly, I believe he’ll be just fine. As much as he says he wants the fall semester to be over with, he should enjoy it. This is his last semester of college. If I could stay another semester, I probably would have. It went by way too fast and I feel like just when I found my niche, it was time to say goodbye. I know in the long run, I’ll keep in touch with the ones who mean the most to me, but when you’ve worked with a certain group of people, not just just in the classroom, but outside of school on sets as well, you become a family. You share the same memories, you grow close. It’s really sad for me to leave all of that behind.

But I know that no matter what happens, he’ll always be with me and I’ll always be with him. We may fight, get on each other’s nerves, and everything in between, but a true friendship isn’t always butterflies. You have to experience the bad in order to appreciate the good. I know he never meant to intentionally hurt me, it just sucks that it happened. But he’s not a terrible person and I know he meant well. There comes a point where I have to let go of the past, let go of the grudges and move on.

I don’t know know why, but I feel like I can’t focus at the moment. Maybe it’s because I’m coming off of an intense 4-day shoot. Maybe it has to do with other personal factors. Maybe it’s because I’m graduating college in less than a month. I have no clue. I should be doing my homework that I procrastinated on due to this production, but maybe I just need to chill out for a second a write about it.

I couldn’t be any more thankful for this opportunity I’ve been given this weekend to be a part of this production. Not only did I learn a lot, I also got to work with the people I started this journey with. I’m sad that my time here is almost coming to an end, but I’ll never forget the memories made with these people.

On the other hand, it was a little heartbreaking working with him…my friend I mean. It’s so sad to see two people who were once so close become so distant. It was hard being with him on set because I felt like he didn’t respect me at all…to the point, where I tried to keep myself occupied with other people and not speak to him. But I mean, that’s how life is sometimes and you just have to go with it. I only have a month left until I never have to see him again.

But I’m not going to focus on that. I’m really excited (and nervous) about graduating. I can’t believe it’s less than a month away. Time flies so I have to enjoy it while I can…because after that, everything is going to change.